To improve their operating efficiencies many companies and other business entities are implementing business software. Some types of business software are designed to integrate a plurality of legacy, stand-alone systems, such as a payroll department system, a human resource system, a warehouse system, and an accounting department system, into a single, unified software system. By integrating separate computer systems into the single system, the various departments share information through a single database. Thus, barriers to a free exchange of information between departments are removed. For example, in the legacy systems, personnel may shuffle a customer order from one department to another with each department entering the information that it needs from the order into its own system. Thus, no one in the company knows the status of the order at any particular time without contacting other departments. By contrast, in the single, unified system, all departments have access to each other's information, that way each department has access to all information that is necessary to determine the status of the order. Hopefully, as a result, the customer receives their order more quickly. Large companies pose the greatest implementation challenges.
In general, large companies have more bureaucracy and may have multiple stand-alone systems possibly located at different geographic locations. In addition, many businesses believe that their method of operation gives them a business advantage. Thus a custom business software application is often required to address multiple, and sometime duplicative, stand-alone systems in a large corporation, as well as the business' individual method of operation. An IT professional's skills may be required to install and integrate business software, but they are necessary for customizing business software. Consequently, the costs of purchasing and implementing custom business software can be prohibitive due to the complexity of large company systems and the high-level skills required for integration and customization.
As is known in the art, integration of stand-alone computer systems may be accomplished by implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. ERP systems are a type of business software that integrates multiple, stand-alone systems into a single system. In other words, ERP systems target the elimination of the barriers to communication between the legacy stand-alone systems. The benefits of an integrated system may include reduced operating costs and standardization in reporting financial data, such as for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. Another benefit may include lower system maintenance costs. Commercially available ERP systems include systems such as those available from Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft.
As previously mentioned, implementation of an ERP system may entail installation, integration, and customization by IT professionals. Ideally, the IT professional will simply install a “vanilla” or standard off-the-shelf version of the ERP software. Off-the-shelf versions of ERP software usually incorporate “best practices” as interpreted by the ERP software producer. The ERP software does not, therefore, incorporate each individual's best practices. Of course, the reality of implementing ERP software is not so simple. One reason is because off-the-shelf ERP software does not implement what a company considers as its best business practices. In these situations, ERP implementation will require the IT professionals to customize the ERP system. The IT professionals customize ERP systems to accomplish various tasks, for example, by writing new user interfaces and modifying the underlying application code to perform a customized function. Another reason to customize is to interface the ERP system to other third party applications. Customizing an ERP system is both expensive and time consuming.
In an effort to make their products more user friendly and affordable, business software companies have introduced add-on modules that are more easily integrated into a core ERP system, for example, SAP America Inc., Newtown Square, Pa., (hereinafter, “SAP”) offers a variety of modules, such as a customer relationship management (CRM) module, a product lifecycle management (PLM) module, a supply chain management (SCM) module, and a supplier relationship management (SRM) module. While the availability of modules simplifies, to some extent, the implementation of the module, customization is still the mainstay for conforming the ERP system to what a company considers as its best practices. Therefore, the costs of implementing ERP software, which usually requires some customization, remains high, and may easily exceed the cost of the software license. Thus, many companies, which would benefit from implementation of an ERP system, cannot afford to buy and implement the ERP system. Other companies do not purchase ERP systems because an analysis of return on investment indicates that ERP has a poor return.
Therefore, what is needed in the art is a method for selling customized business software. If a company which customizes its ERP system can sell its customized software, it will recapture some of its costs, thereby improving its return on investment. In addition, those companies who cannot justify buying and implementing a vanilla version of ERP software because of its cost, may, however, have sufficient money to purchase a customized software application that meets their needs. For example, companies with similar business models, i.e., alcoholic beverage and soda beverage manufacturers, who are not direct competitors, may have similar customization needs for their ERP software. Therefore, if the alcoholic beverage manufacturer customizes its ERP software, it may sell it to the soda beverage manufacturer to recoup some of its ERP implementation costs. The soda beverage manufacturer has an opportunity to purchase otherwise unavailable, customized ERP software. While the customized ERP software may be a 90% fit to the soda beverage manufacturer's systems, the overall cost of purchasing and implementing the customized ERP software may be substantially less than purchasing off-the-shelf software and then customizing it. Thus, by buying an already customized software system, the buyer saves substantial development costs and lowers the overall cost of its investment. In other words, both the software seller and software buyer save money.